


Do Not Speak to Me of Martyrdom

by Walking_Pillar_of_Salt



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 13:11:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10742370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walking_Pillar_of_Salt/pseuds/Walking_Pillar_of_Salt
Summary: And that's what it all boils down to: Light runs, and L follows.





	Do Not Speak to Me of Martyrdom

_“Do not speak to me of martyrdom,_

_of men who only die to be remembered on some parish day._

_I don’t believe in dying._

_\- Sonia Sanchez_

 

It fell. 

It was sudden, certainly — an line of black, pages whipping in the wind. Light barely sees it, as subtle as it was. Later, he’ll question if it he ever saw it all — if he didn’t simply feel it fall and turn towards it, embracing his destiny with open hands. 

He turns from his desk and watches it finish its descent, collapsing like a fainting starlet, its pages all aflutter. His teacher drones on in the background, too focused on the semantics of English grammar to notice a distracted student, and so Light places his chin in his palm and abandons his notes and the lesson entirely. 

He makes a mental note to go find it, the notebook that fell from the sky. Normal notebooks, he supposes, don’t typically fall from the sky, making this notebook an abnormal one and therefore, in the ever-present weight of the day-to-day, worth investigating. When class ends, he does just that, gathering his bag and brushing past his fellow students to the courtyard, where the fleeting object of his fancy sits innocuously, so far from anyone that it seems like they are actively avoiding it. 

He walks to it and stands over it, observing it from above.

On the cover, in a smooth-sharp gothic style, reads _Death Note_. 

 _A prank?_ He wonders. 

He picks it up, testing it in his hands. The spine had strength to it, like the book had been professionally made — like, Light thinks, that it had been made to last. 

There is no sign of paint peeling, or the uneven coverage characteristic of markers; there were no lines marring the jutting black, or any sign that the book had been handmade at all, or even that the book had been made by human hands. 

The book sits prettily in his palm, undisturbed by its unusual route. It was rather cold, its cover, and, beyond the unusual flourish of the title, completely nondescript. But it exerts a pressure in its vagueness, in its foreignness, and inspires the sort of superstition that crawls up Light’s spine and makes a home in the shivering flesh of his underarms, in the quake of his ankles and the fragile bend of his wrists — a type of fear he remembers from only from when he was young enough to feel it. And Light, as he holds it, the object of his fear and the cause of the first real emotion that Light — who has a mask so perfect that he stopped feeling things underneath it — had felt in a decade decides, now that he has felt the weight of the Death Note in the back of his mind, that he has to take it home.

He grabs it gently, maneuvering it from his palm to the depths of his hand, and he wraps his fingers around the thin spine, placing it in his backpack behind his textbooks.

“Light!” a voice calls. 

He turns, and his classmates greet his eyes, their genial smiles and gentle demeanor jarring and strange.

“Oh,” he says, “Hey!” 

They nudge his shoulders and chastise him for running out of class, smiling and laughing and cheery all the while, and he looks into their eyes and realizes that they are all faceless, even as he knows their names.

_They don’t matter to me in the slightest, and they will never know that._

He swallows harshly, and conjures up a grin; he makes an excuse to them, and their disappointment, made of their grabbing hands and teasing voices, sticks to him like mud on the bottom of his shoes. He peels it off his tan loafers, and begins the walk home by himself as the Death Note sticks out of his bag and shadows run up the walls. In a world where living feels like sleeping and there’s nothing but the dark, Light wonders, and waits, and despairs. 

_—_

 

 

_Once, when he was young, Light’s father had taken him to the bank on a routine trip._

_Light remembers the rush upon walking in, civilians slamming into each other like screaming vehicles, their phone lights and cacophonous voices blaring. His father had pulled him by the hand, a tugging lifeline that Light tripped over himself to follow. They made it to the quiet street of the teller’s desk and Light huddled into his father’s side, hiding his face in the rough fabric of his father’s worn slacks, the threads coming loose near the ankles._

_Many skills came to Light naturally — gauging tension, as Light learned in that moment, was one of them. And so when he felt a cold, creeping pressure along the back of his exposed ears, he grabbed his father’s pant leg tighter, and wasn’t surprised when the command “Freeze!” billowed throughout the room._

_Light’s father had sworn under his breath and turned, forcing Light to abandon his hiding place to face six men in masks, eyes and guns gleaming with malice._

_“Now,” the presumed leader loomed, “I assume you all wouldn’t mind putting your phones in this bag here, otherwise you may find yourself sporting a few new holes.”_

_Light’s father stiffened, his knee locking into a line. As the other civilians passed their phones forward, Light’s father snuck his hand in his jacket pocket and grabbed his, dialing a number surreptitiously._

_Light had felt a gripping terror, at that moment, for both himself and his father. A masked man walked by, and Light dug his fingernails into his palm, trying not to sweat._

_“It isn’t heroic.” he had murmured, his voice high and soft, “Dying here, that is.”_

_Light’s father had looked down, surprise etched into the line of his brows, and pat Light on the head._

_“It’ll be fine,” Soichiro Yagami said, the tired lines of his face forming a smile. “Justice always prevails, after all.”_

_Light’s father looked away, then, and murmured into his phone, “Armed individuals are currently holding the Kanto Bank in Block 45 hostage.”_

_He hung up, quickly, and passed his phone forward._

_“Hey, what are you doing?” A masked man barked._

_He walked in their direction, aggression clear in the pounding of his steps._

_He readied his gun to fire and trained it at the elderly couple to Light’s right. “Why do you still have your phone?”_

_“I was just texting my grandson, I meant nothing by it!” The old woman wailed, while her husband bracingly held her shoulder. She collapsed, and the man stomped forward and placed the gun on her forehead._

_“Let this be a lesson to you.” He muttered, and pulled the trigger._

_The door banged against the wall. Footsteps echoed against the marble of the floor, and a line of police officers assembled, blocking the exit, with guns trained on the assailants. “You’re under arrest. Nice tip, Yagami.”_

_The room exhaled, the relief so palpable that it almost was enough to discount the blood and brain matter, squishy and grey, coating Light’s front and face._

_His vision blurred, and he fell to his knees. He wiped his eye, and a viscous lump of blood and tissue came loose, oozing on his hand. He blinked, trying to clear his vision and see the salvation gathered in the front of the room instead of the ruin of the old woman’s head and her inconsolable husband at her side._

_“Light!” his father yelled, coming to his side and holding his shoulder so Light faced him. “Are you alright?”_

_“I can’t see,” Light murmured, tears stained red as they cut through the blood coating his face. “I can’t see.”_

—

 

 

_The human whose name is written in this note shall die._

Light stands, and closes his bedroom door from where he had left it open. He picks up the book again and rereads the sentence, knowing that he didn’t misunderstand. 

 _That’s..._ His thoughts scatter like birds.  _Morbid? Horrifying?_

_Wonderful?_

He’s not sure if he believes in the Death Note, but he saw it fall from the sky, from a place that no one could have dropped it — as if it originating from the folds of the sky and the cradle of the clouds. 

He wants to believe in the Death Note.

He thinks he should be horrified — thinks that the Death Note and its potential should appall him instead of kindle in him a steady, heady burn. He thinks he should be less tempted to use a tool whose only purpose is murder. 

He turns on the TV and flips to the news. 

“Breaking news!” sounds the television, “A strange man is currently holding a school hostage! Police are heading towards the scene.”

Light feels something stretch the corners of his mouth tightly — something that, when he looks at it in the mirror, he hardly recognizes as a smile — and looks at the both the man’s face blaring on the screen and the name emblazoned underneath. He grabs a pen and wields it with a flourish, and inhales; his lungs quiver, like butterflies, trembling as his emotions sweep him to a place so high that he can decide the fate of a man on a whim.

 _40 seconds, it said?_ He times it on his watch, eyes fixed on the screen and on cars milling outside the school.

_38..._

_39..._

_40._

The school doors open with a boom, and the children scatter.

“What is this?” 

Light covers his mouth with his hands, trying to contain the sheer rush of emotions running through him, but a laugh still crawls out his throat, and suddenly he can’t stop; he’s rolling in his bed, tears cascading down his cheeks and his mouth aching from the wound of a smile contorting his face.

 _Finally!_ He thinks, triumphant and rapturous and golden, his mind unsheathed and his eyes wide open and the grinning specter in the back of his mind coming forward, scythe at the ready.

 _The world is rotten,_ he thinks, because he has a murder weapon and is ready to kill, 

 _and I am awake._  

—

 

 

Light uses the Death Note like a limb, at first — not only is it instinctual, it is _more than;_ it is elemental, the danger lying under the smooth-silk facade Light glues to his skin. It is a clawed extension of his hands; it completes the rounded ends of his nails, which really ought to have been sharp. 

He kills, and men in prisons fall down like dominoes, toppling moral expectations as they go. Kira blooms in the anonymity of the Internet; websites flourish, his name dominating the news cycle and common conversation, until justice is in the common parlance and vengeance even more so. In the United States, fat politicians in expensive suits push for the death penalty, and far-right leaders in Europe follow their lead. Churches and clubs are devoted to him; people say his name in enclosed, candled rooms. People forget, Light realizes, as he kills and kills, what mercy means; they forget, moment by moment, how to forgive. 

But for every step forward he makes, L fights him for it, digging his heels into the bodies Light leaves on the ground. Light was cocky, at first; how could anyone find him when he kills with a _notebook_ , of all things? How could anyone hope to understand the rules of the Death Note when nothing like it has ever existed before? 

But L finds him, all the same, and Light finds himself hiding. He buys a TV he keeps in chip bags, a girl to wrap around his arm as he kills Raye Penber. He skirts danger; outsmarting, he's sure, the entirety of the Japanese police force and whoever the hell else they send after him, except for L. It could only be L, he thinks, as he watches Naomi Misora walk to her death, that could find him as he continues to run. 

And that's what it — the fall of the Death Note, or the worlds he and L try to make, or Ryuk’s ever-present laughter as Light leaves bodies behind him — all boils down to: Light runs, and L chases. 

“I want to tell you,” he says, in a whisper that may as well be a shout, “I’m L.”

Light looks forward for a second, and screams, senselessly, in the echo chamber inside his head, and the danger thrums through Light’s veins a bit more loudly than before. 

Ryuk delights in it, the games he and L play with each other. He’s an idiotic thing, too used to the ways of the dead to give birth to any new thoughts, but he’s inescapable. Light, although he’s not accustomed to being honest with anyone, least of all himself, would almost say that his presence is nice; don't all artists, Light muses, as he catches an apple and watches the world dance, want appreciation for their work?

“This pride,” he murmurs in his cell, the arrogance on his face hidden by this hair, “I’ll have to get rid of it.”

He feels Kira leaving him like a itch, and something like a wildfire runs through him, removing inner wounds and smoothing his sharp edges, and when he opens his eyes again, he has no sharpness left at all, and the game pauses.

—

 

 

 

 

  

_"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”_

_\- Pablo Neruda_

 

Most mornings, when they’re handcuffed to each other, Light and L have a simple routine: Light makes some healthy meal — an omelet, or perhaps fresh fruit — while L finds some sort of painstakingly well-crafted confection to munch on while he waits for Light to finish. Then, they migrate to the table, where Light drinks his coffee and reads the news, while L entertains himself by surreptitiously plopping sugar cubes into Light’s coffee. 

One morning, as Light pours his coffee while L rummages through the fridge for donuts, L’s phone rings.  

“Hello?” L says, lifting the phone by the antenna. His mouth widens in surprise. “Watari canceled this morning’s meeting — apparently there’s trouble elsewhere that requires his attention.”

Light looks up from his steaming mug. “We weren’t really going to talk about much. It’s not as if we’ve made much progress recently.”

L’s smile gets a sardonic twist to it. “Quite. We do have a rare moment of peace, however. Would you like to play chess? I had Watari bring a set here recently.”

Light shrugs. “I suppose, if we’re just going to kill time.”

L fetches it, and Light sets up while L decides on a box of powdered donuts. 

“Black, or white?” L asks. 

“White,” Light says decisively. 

“But of course,” L says, “and thank you for being kind to me — it will be much easier to clean powdered sugar off of the black pieces.”

Light feels a flash of irritation, but it’s followed by a fond exasperation at L’s habits. “I’m sure. Do you play chess much?”

“Not as much as I used to. I used to play with a colleague — you’ve heard about Naomi Misora? She passed away recently, but she played excellently.”

Light moves his central pawn forward two spaces, and he tries to ignore his growing apprehension at the turn the conversation is taking. “Pawn to d4. Yes, I heard about that when I looked back at the early Kira files. You worked with her on other investigations?”

“Yes. Have you heard about the Beyond Birthday killings in San Francisco? They were rather well-publicized a few years ago. Knight to f6.” 

“No, I hadn’t. How long ago was that? Knight to f3.”

“About 3 or 4 years ago. You must have been 15 or so? Pawn to g6.” L’s smile goes crooked. “You were so young, I can’t expect you to have heard of it, although I followed the news at your age.”

Light’s temper swells a little. “I’m not that much younger than you. Pawn to c4.”

“Of course not.” L smiles. “In any case, Beyond Birthday was apparently a very intelligent psychopath. He charmed Misora, and killed randomly so he wouldn’t be caught. Bishop to c7.”

“Well, he obviously was caught eventually.” Light says, interest snared. “Knight to c3.”

“He tried to kill himself by self-immolation, to commit the perfect crime - one with no clear motive, where the murderer can’t be found. Castling.”

“Tried?” Light asks. “Pawn to h3.”

“Misora found him out, and he didn’t quite die.” L says, with a strange expression. “He suffered third-degree burns to 70% of his body. An acquaintance of mine described him as looking ‘rather melty.’ Pawn to d6.”

Light takes a sip of his coffee. It burns going down. “It’s hard to imagine a situation where a criminal like that deserved less than death, but I suppose that’s one of them. Pawn to e4.”

“26%, Light. Knight to c6.” 

Light’s temper flares, but he snuffs it and snorts. “Oh, come on! He’s a vicious serial killer! At least allow me to appreciate the irony in the situation. Pawn to d5.”

“What, that a criminal suffered, arguably, a worse fate than any of his victims at his own hands?” L smears powdered sugar on his rook. “I suppose so, but it takes a rather… baroque outlook to find humor in that. Are you a fan of Dante’s Divine Comedy? Knight to e5.”

“What, the damned suffering eternally for their mortal sins in a way that echoes their crimes? It felt a bit sophomoric, actually — too straightforward.” Light takes L’s knight with his own. 

“You ought not to dismiss it out of hand.” L says, the thumb on the corner of his mouth stretching his face into something resembling a smile. He takes Light’s knight with a pawn.“I certainly appreciate Dante’s irony, considering what we’re up against.” 

“What do you mean, Ryuzaki?” Light asks, abandoning the game and meeting his eyes.

“Well, Kira causes heart attacks, which is rather funny, considering that he’s heartless.” L chuckles, and looks at Light with his disk eyes, dark with mirth and gleaming like dinner plates. Something in Light’s chest shifts, and his heart trembles, just a little. 

“That’s a shallow comparison, and trite.” Light says, and L’s eyes widen, his lips pulled taut in a facsimile sort of smile. 

Light can’t look at L for long, when he smiles like he knows everything, so Light turns to the board and moves his queen. The game shifts. 

—

 

 

L has never met anyone like Light Yagami before. 

He’s a study in perfection, in light reflecting in a mirror maze. He’s just a little bit too — L bites his thumb, and looks at Light, as he types on the big-screen monitor he’s adopted for the Kira investigation. His hair is styled and his skin clear, as if L hadn’t dragged him out the bathroom after five minutes this morning. It’s almost if, L muses, that Light’s physical form, his smooth lines and sharp smiles, was of Light’s own design — as if his body is merely another part of the world for him to mold, and another weapon to wield.  He’s… interesting, L decides, and he can’t help but pull on the chain of the handcuffs a little bit too hard. 

Light gets irritated, and sends L a clipped glance and that, too, seems to be a part of his perfection. His emotions are ugly, steaming under the light of direct exposure, but they help absolve him of suspicion better than any calculated veneer ever could. Everything Light does, from the way he sits to his tastes in coffee to his soft midnight snores, seems calculated to ensure his innocence — seems calculated to make L look away from this perfectly normal honor-student-son, and yet…

_Have you ever told the truth in your life, Light Yagami?_

There’s something _else,_ L thinks, to Light, to the boy that Soichiro sends proud smiles at when Light isn’t looking, to the man who chases Kira in a ceaseless tandem with L.  L looks at Light — at the cuff of his sleeve, the fit of his pants, at the alignment of his knuckles as they shift in his typing — and he feels the urge to stab Light through the wing and pin him like a butterfly, if only to keep him from hiding. L itches for a searchlight. 

When L first began the Kira case, he built a profile. Male, likely, due to his aggressive tendencies; young enough to have the idealism to cleanse the world, and old enough to get his hands dirty for it; aloof, possibly sociopathic, to kill so many so callously; and unspeakably brilliant, to have gotten this far. 

Light fit all of that perfectly — was so much of what L imagined that he could scarcely believe it, sometimes —  and so, out of all of the Kira suspects, of every lead they chased, L introduced himself to Light and Light alone, because his gut said Light was Kira, and his gut is never wrong. And when L told Light his name and alias, in that crowded room filled with intelligent people neither of them considered peers, L saw a gleam in Light’s eyes honey-brown eyes that made them look like blood, and he knew, so strongly that he almost shook with it, that Light was Kira. 

_So where are you, dammit?_

He goads, to see if something will slip through; he gives arbitrary Kira percentages and spills desserts in Light’s lap and ignores Light’s anger, until Light responds violently, throwing punches and kicks with a ferocity that's surprising but _still not what he’s hiding._

L fights Light in return, clawing into Light’s skin until some of the frustration seeps away, but it never really does. L feels it thrum in his veins lowly, hovering at basement level and disturbing his steel-pillar foundation that’s never before had cause to tremble. He watches Light sleep, most evenings, pretending to work but mostly watching Light twist and turn, his face slack with softness and the facade abandoned but still there all the same. He watches, and waits, and wants to _fucking scream_ , because Light Yagami seems to be everything that he says he is — a shiningly brilliant, idealistic young police officer — and also the most glorious match to his mind that he’s ever known. Light Yagami, L thinks, as he scratches at his skin and ignores the welling blood, makes his mind sing at both the challenge and camaraderie, and L wants to either throw him in jail or never let him go. 

—

 

 

Light draws pictures on his pillow. 

L types, his hands arched like spiders over the keys of his laptop. Light draws a little spider, and imagines that its googly eyes are innocent and charming in the grey folds of the sheets.

“Light.” L intones, his voice gravitating towards a lower register than it usually occupies. Light wonders why, and squishes the spider as he presses his face to the pillow. “Hm?”

“What are you doing?” L asks. He’s still typing. 

“Can’t sleep.” Light replies. He doesn’t move from the pillow, so it comes out muffled. Light can’t express how little he cares. 

“It’s 4AM, Light.”

“Mm.” 

L sighs, and shuts his laptop. “You need to sleep for the Kira investigation.”

“Hm.” Light replies. He exhales roughly, and the sheets recoil.

“Light,” L says, more gently than Light thought he was able, and the bed dips slightly. Light lifts his head from the pillow and finds L sitting at the head of the bed, his right thigh inches from Light’s face.

“I don’t think that’ll help me sleep, Ryuzaki.” Light mumbles. L exhales, softly, and Light’s so tired that he’d almost call it a laugh. 

“I know.” L says. “I thought some conversation might do it.” He scratches his head. Light can hear the _sritch_ his nails make against his skull. “I have some experience with having too many things on your mind.”

Light shakes his head, a little, and bumps L’s thigh by accident. It’s soft and surprisingly yielding. “It’s not that. It’s just insomnia. It comes and goes.”

“Ah.” L says, and it’s silent for a minute or so. “Would conversation still be a decent tonic? It’s no panacea, but —“

Light lifts his head completely from the pillow, and rests it on the side of L’s leg, exhaustion guiding him into an easy complacency. “It’ll do for now.”

L goes silent again, and Light looks up, ignoring the twinge in his neck, at L’s face. His hair dangles, and Light can see the oil, building at the roots near his forehead. His eyes are less rounded than usual, his eyelids resting a quarter of the way down. The shadows under his eyes match his hair. 

“You haven't been sleeping either.” Light says. “Are you alright?”

“I’m… used to it, I suppose.” L leans back against the wall. “This investigation just happens to be especially draining.”

Light smiles, although he’s sure that L can't see it. “Yeah, I get it. Do you ever sleep well, though?”

“Not particularly.” L says, his voice coloring a little with the understatement. He pops his jaw, and Light can hear the reverberation through the meat of L’s thigh. 

Light smiles again, and it feels a little brighter, this time. “Has it always been like this? The whole… inverse candy-sleep relationship?”

L looks at him, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, and makes up his mind with a snap of his eyelids. “Ever since I became L. I was… young, when I assumed the position.”

Light resumes drawing, but the white of L’s thigh replaces the pillow as his canvas. “I can’t imagine,” he says, “what it’s been like.”

“Lonely.” L says, immediately, and Light rolls closer, to face L fully, his face scrunched with soft surprise. “Have you felt this way for long?” Light asks, curious and concerned.

“I grew up,” L says, quietly, “in an orphanage, and then I was taken to another orphanage, albeit of a different sort. I had Whammy and a few others, but…” L swallows, his back sliding slowly against the wall until he’s fully in the bed. “Two people, on this planet, know my given name, and that's a pretty big divide to cross.”

“I won’t ask,” Light says, in a smaller voice than before, “but I really wish that I could.”

“And I wish that I could tell you.” L says, and he finds his way closer to Light. “I really, really wish that I could tell you.”

Something soft and sudden pools under Light’s eyes and in the back of his throat. He sniffles, as quietly as he can, and tries to ignore his traitorous heart and the empathy in L’s eyes. “I’m not.” He says, quietly, but with as much feeling as he can muster. “I’m _not._ I’d remember it, I’d _know it._ But you keep saying that I am, and I fit the profile, and…”

“Light?” L asks, and a hand finds its way to Light’s face, tentatively, and with the slightest shake. 

“I keep having… _dreams.”_ Light murmurs. “And they’re so _red_ , L, and I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m not Kira, but I can’t…”

Light swallows. “I can’t blame you for thinking I am. Even though it’s awful, and it hurts, it makes too much sense, and… _”_

 _He seems so afraid._ L marvels, and stares at the water gathering in Light’s eyes, swimming in pools of sun. _He… wasn't like this, before._

 _Before I imprisoned him_. L realizes, and his head nearly bows forward with the weight of the realization. _He was Kira, and now he isn’t — but when will he switch back? And how can I keep this version of Light here?_

”It’s okay, Light.” L murmurs, and he brings Light closer with a pull on his chin. He puts his arms around Light’s shoulders gently, and Light falls into him, shaking slightly. “We can catch Kira together.” 

Light’s head flips up, like a rocket whizzing into the air, and L gets trapped in his eyes and their sticky honey-brown. “ _L.”_ he says, and suddenly his lips are on L’s and L’s heart quivers to a stop. _You beautiful, crazy thing,_ L wonders, the delight that burns on his lips lovely and bright and likely what damns him, _what am I supposed to do with this?_

Light stops, suddenly, and L realizes that he hadn’t been reciprocating. “L?” Light tremors, more vulnerable than L ever thought Light would ever be. _I’m compromised, and I can’t beat Kira when I love you, you stupid, stupid thing._ “Light,” L murmurs, “I’m sorry.” He leans in again, and kisses Light back. 

 _I’m lost._ He thinks, and he’s never felt so potent a despair as the one that coats Light’s lips. _I’ve lost._

—

 

 

They go gentle with each other. 

L sleeps better than he has in years, nightmares quieted by the rumble of Light’s snores. Their legs tangle in the mornings, and, as light streams through the window, L looks at Light’s summer-bright hair, shining like cornfields and soft sand. Light’s made, L thinks, on sleep-easy days when Kira is distant and Light is near, of places that he’s never been to, of some divine stuff that L has yet understand. Could he get swatches of Light’s skin under a microscope, so he could understand why it glimmers so brightly? He wants to examine the chemical makeup of a milk-white smile, carbon date Light’s ageless eyes, and run autopsy reports on his own heart when Light looks at him and can feel it stop beating. L, as he listens to Light hum after his first cup of coffee, wants to store moments in his marrow; he wants to keep Light in his infinitudes and singularities, to store his mind in a library and spend his life looking through the pages. 

Light matches him in positivity. Light is happy — ludicrously so, it feels, and L can almost match his brightness on the easier days, when Kira feels less like an inevitability and more like poorly-rendered figment of his imagination. Light gives little truths easily — quiet mutterings of _you're the only one who knows me_ and _I’m so glad that I know you_ and _thank you for everything —_ sometimes when he thinks L isn’t listening and sometimes when he thinks L is. His anger, that ebullient thing that Light always left on the back burner, over his imprisonment seems to have evaporated in the face of L’s newfound trust in him.

And L, scarily enough, _can_ trust him now, despite the preponderance of evidence against Light that L has never before been inclined to forget. Light may be Kira — may be the only one who could have killed Raye Penber, the only suspect with the matching motive — but Light doesn’t feel like Kira, right now, and L has always trusted his gut over anything else. 

 _Light isn’t Kira_ , L thinks; _Light is innocent_ , he thinks, and it rings almost true, off by a half-note, but L’s never been a musician, so he’s not one to care; _Light will stay this way_ , he tries, and it rings hollow. 

They keep quiet about this, about the comfort they’ve found, coated in each other, because Light wants to catch Kira first, and L doesn’t want Kira to come back and find L’s heart in his hands. 

—

 

 

It’s the same — and yet it isn’t. 

Before, their shower arrangements had been something of an inconvenience — an exercise in the aversion of eyes, in the practiced placement of towels. But, as L climbs out of the shower, nearly slipping on the shower curtain, Light finds himself considering. L towel dries his hair, and Light eyes the knobs of his spine, counting them as they protrude from his tissue-skin. 

“Light,” L murmurs, his voice dipping to a new valley-lows. Light feels it in rush in his chest. “I’m not going to say no.”

Light startles, and looks at L again: the slope of his ribs, present and painful to look at; the winding black of his hair, roped into knots L’s never bothered to comb out; his eyes, as wide and black as ever, but containing a new hint of promise; and his smile, cheeky and goading and slightly daring. 

Light swallows, and his hands find a place on either side of L’s head, nestled in the groves of the tile. L smiles, and straightens to his full height, standing slightly above Light. “Do you want to do this here,” he asks, in a voice that Light hasn't heard before but very much would like to hear more of, “or do you want to make it to the bed?”

Light kisses him, and that voice transitions directly into a moan, curling and heavy in Light’s stomach. They find their way into the attached bedroom, and Light unbuttons his shirt in haste, L watching him in amusement. “Shush,” Light says, his face coloring slightly as he wiggles out of his clothing, and he leans over L. 

“Should I say something hackneyed about how much talking we’re going to be doing during this?” L responds, falling back on his elbows. 

Light barks out a laugh. “ _God,_ please don’t. How much porn do you watch, Ryuzaki, to even think of that?”

“I daresay that I don’t do this often,” L says, smiling in kind, “so a good bit.”

Light leans forward, and licks a stripe up his neck. L gasps, and murmurs, “Also, you’re in between my legs, so I don’t believe it would be too untoward for you to call me L.”

“You have condoms?” Light asks, and L looks at him askance. 

“Why, exactly, would I have condoms? You declared your intentions to do this about five minutes ago.” L replies. 

Light starts, “Well, I didn’t exactly _declare —“_

 _“Oh,_ I think your staring was pretty much a declaration —“ L laughs into the hollow of his neck. “And I’d be shocked if you weren't clean.”

“I’m surprised that you even think about things like this, L.” Light says, and he savors the way the new monicker slips off his tongue. 

“Well, I am a functioning human being, and _speaking of,”_ L prods Light’s leg with his erection, “in the porn, the foreplay didn't usually involve this much talking.”

Light bends over, getting closer to L’s face. Their eyes meet, and L looks at him in his characteristic way — mouth small and centered, skin pale, and eyes as depthless as anything else Light has seen. He kisses him soundly, and they lean in together, chests touching. It’s hot, L’s skin still damp from the shower, and Light can hardly describe what it feels like — can hardly have even imagined the way that L sounded beneath him, the way he feels like exploding, his skin marked by red-racing jubilation everywhere L touches him. It feels like —  _god,_ it feels like dying, like rebirth, like absolution, like things Light’s never known to name. It’s a kaleidoscope made manifest against his skin, the way L moves underneath him. His body hums with the feeling of it. 

“ _Light,”_ L gasps, ragged, and Light moves against him, seeking wholeness. There are hands, scrambling for purchase on the slick of each other’s skin. There’s consumption, wanton and eternal, ouroboros; infinities in the swells of knee caps, in L’s hair fanning against the pillow, in the tremble of his legs and the fragile shake of his bones. 

 _Is it wrong to think of transcendence?_ Light wonders, as he marvels at how well their skin sticks together. _Is it wrong to think of ascending?_ Light has thought of godhood before — thought of worlds crumbling, of trembling crowds, of rewriting the history books with his own name — and he has never felt closer to it than at this moment, with L looking at him like his name is deserved. They slide against each other, and it ought to be ugly and coarse, except that it isn’t — except that it’s fantastic, ridiculously and impossibly, like a thousand summer days at once, and Light slumps against L, spent. 

They lie there, for a moment — waiting for something, Light’s sure, although he couldn’t possibly think of what. 

“Thank you, Light.” L says from his place between L’s calves, and Light supposes that he found his answer. 

“It was pretty good for me too, L — you don’t have to thank me.” Light responds.

“No, Light.” L says, suddenly impossibly sad. “Thank you.”

—

 

 

 

  

 

_“April is the cruelest month.”_

_\- T.S. Eliot_

 

Light screams. It’s overwhelming — an onslaught, an attack, his neurons firing at all speeds as his brain disintegrates in hot oil — and he feels the unholy _rush_ of memories and moments and his pride, all reasserting themselves on the remnants of his past self. He remembers Ryuk, dark-winged and dark-eyed; his anguish and outrage as L peered into his eyes the first time, as Light realized that he could be caught; the burn as the Death Note pried itself from his mind when he gave it up; Raye Penber’s death, the scratch of his pen on the Death Note and his slack of his body between the subway cars; Misa’s breasts, in the dark of her bedroom, as she murmured, “Kira, Kira,” her shinigami eyes wide and red; the humiliation of the cell and the red-hot coal-burn of rage he feels when he looks into the moons of L’s eyes, until he feels Kira grow behind his eyelids and it feels like he’s never been anything else, and the weak-screaming parts of him that grew in Kira’s absence are almost silent. 

“Light?” L asks. Light looks over, and L sits like a frog, bulbous and bug-eyed; questioning, fearful, and very, very careful.

“I’m alright, L.” Light says, exhaling through his nose as the anthem of victory, made of violins and pianos and a pipe organ of churches past, swells in his ears as his former self fades. “Having your conception of reality shattered like that is a bit… startling.”

L’s face slacks, and his mouth goes easy. “Yes, I suppose it would be. Well, this’ll be over soon, I think.”

 _Yes,_ Light thinks. _It will be._

—

 

 

“Well,” Soichiro says, “we’ve caught Higuichi — does Light have to remain in the handcuffs?”

Light shifts, slightly, in his seat next to L. L sends him a teasing sort of smile. “I suppose I could consider removing them…”

Light shocks still, euphoria flooding his system. _L hasn’t realized that anything happened in the helicopter._

“L, you can’t do this indefinitely!” Soichiro roars. “There’s no evidence left to hold against my son!”

Light smiles serenely, supporting Soichiro’s words. 

“If you just like having me around,” Light smiles, his glee allowing him to be playful, “you could just say so, L.”

“I guess.” L says cheerily, and produce the handcuff key from his pants pocket. 

 _Don’t toy with me, you bastard._ “You had it all along?” Light laughs, and it comes up rough, his voice still raw from screaming on the helicopter. “You dick.”

L unlocks the handcuffs, and leans gently against Light’s shoulder. 

Soichiro looks between the two of them, confusion nestled in the furrow of his brow. “Light, is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“Your son and I,” L bursts out, excited like he’d consumed three cheesecakes in rapid succession, “are currently having relations.” 

 _What are you playing at?_ Light wonders, even as he feels a swell of fondness and loathing for L in equal measure, and childishness that he rarely allows to manifest. Light swallows his pride and sits his head on top of L’s. 

“Well, um. Light.” Soichiro says. “I’m… happy for you, but don’t you have a girlfriend? That… Mesa Mesa?”

“Yeah, you probably should break up with her at some point, Light.” L sways at his side, spinning the handcuff on his fingers.

 _Shit, I forgot about Misa!_ Light realizes, and he swallows heavily. _Half of the reason she listened to me was because we were dating…_

“I’m sure she’ll be pretty understanding.” Light says, hoping the sweat beading on his brow isn’t too noticeable. “Being handcuffed to someone for this long changes a few things, I suppose.”

Matsuda squees from the back of the room. “I KNEW it! Oh, you two will be so _cute_ together! Are you going to go on dates and get cute little pastries to share?”

Light apparently doesn’t do an excellent job hiding his disdain, because a laugh dribbles out of L’s mouth, slow and sloppy.

Light’s heart, that gray dying thing the Death Note made him forget, squeezes — not enough to mean anything, Light thinks, or to matter — just a tad; apparently it shows, because Matsuda squees again and his father begins making abortive glances towards the door. 

—

 

 

Light, when he seized the Death Note and world the it offered, assumed many things: first, his mastery over himself, and, secondly, his mastery over the world, and how, when given a divine tool, he could mold the putty-clay earth in his hands. Ryuk, cackling like a hyena, a buzzard, like a predator circling dying things in deserts, said, when Light had killed 26 men on a quiet Tuesday evening, that he’s never seen a human so sure that things will go his way. Light, when he thinks about it, as L types hurriedly by his side, realizes that he never stops to question the arrogance that curls around his head like smoke. L would, if Light ever bothered to ask, say it weakens him, but Light knows better — Light knows that Kira wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t capable of challenging the world and finding it lesser, knows that the Death Note is only a book, in the end. Light knows the world and knows himself, and he feels, in moments of contented satisfaction, that he has yet to find his limits — that there are no limits for him to find except in staring into L’s fish eyes, big and bulging and ill-suited to the air. And as irritating as L is, in his percentages and quirks and towering brilliance, it’s thrilling to know that only something as alien as him could even threaten Light — to know that only a creature so far removed from humanity could even lay a finger on his skin. 

L’s a study in contradiction and hard angles, wrapped in the harsh truth of his ideals. He contorts, folds like a disposable paper thing, when, in actuality, he's rooted to the earth with steady permanence, in the might of L, Eraldo Coil, and the world that he has wrapped in his twig hands, which are white like winter and distant from the sun. He is made of marble, and his eyes are stones, and Light knows that even as the rest of the world is plastic, malleable to his wants, L will never shatter. 

And now, Light thinks, as L stirs his tea and Light itches for a pen, L has to die, because Light has no idea what to do with things that he can’t break. 

—

 

 

At Matsuda’s behest and his father’s awkward but well-meant urging, Light drags L out on a sunny Sunday afternoon. 

“This is… nice, isn’t it?” L says, watching the city noise as they stroll towards the nearest bakery. 

It _is_ , Light thinks, the sort of day for this kind of thing: the skies were clearing from a fresh morning rain; Light’s boots squished pleasantly against the remaining water on the ground, and L was, of course, in flip flops, which made a sad _ploof_ sound every time they hit a puddle. There were too many people, as always; usually the irritation from that nestles rough against Light’s skin, but the crowds felt a bit smaller, and the world less unclean, with L walking flush against Light’s side. 

“Surprisingly so.” Light replies, and the bakery, a cute, little thing with green umbrella tables, comes into view. Light opens the door for L, and almost manages to ignore the cling of the cold metal against his skin. 

He steps inside, and the scent of delicate confections and jam assaults his nose, and his face scrunches involuntarily. 

“Light!” someone yells, and Light turns to find Misa sitting alone at a nearby table, wearing pink cat-eye classes and her signature pigtails. 

_fuck_

“Mi—“ he begins, before she springs up and sticks a finger to his lips. 

“Shh!” she whispers, winking cutely at him. “I’m incognito, see?” She tilts the glasses down for visual effect. 

Light swallows an expletive. “I see.” 

L, who had entered before Light, walks to his side. “Why hello, Misa! You’re as stunning as I remember.”

“Aw, Ryuzaki!” Misa coos. “Light, he’s much nicer than you.” She hops to L’s side and clings to his arm. “I don’t know why I’m not dating him instead.”

“Speaking of,” L whispers, and, at a greater volume, says, “I think I’ll go order — I wouldn’t want to be here for a couple’s spat, as it were.” He steps away from Misa. “Misa, I can trust you to keep an eye on him?”

“You can count on Misa-Misa!” she says, and blows him a kiss. 

L catches it and holds it close. Misa squeals and Light’s left eyebrow flies to the stratosphere, independent of his will. 

As L walks off, Misa pulls Light to a side table. 

“Do you have your memories back?” she whispers, still at her regular volume. 

“Yes, Misa,” Light says, discarding his irritation at her incompetence to don a charming smile, “and you are just important to the Kira movement as you were before.”

“I am?” she smiles, and leans against his chest. 

He wraps an arm around her. “I’ll be with Ryuzaki regularly, to help him catch Kira, so you’ll have to be my eyes and ears, okay?”

She nods so hard her glasses slide off her nose. Light suppresses a sigh and moves on. 

“I need you to start killing people in ways that aren’t heart attacks in about three months, okay? And after you start writing names,” he says, and moves in for the kill, “I’ll send you the signal to kill Ryuzaki. He’s an important figure in the anti-Kira movement.”

Her eyes widen almost disproportionately. “Ryuzaki? But he’s so sweet!” 

“Yes,” Light says, holding her close, “I know.”

“I’ll do anything for you, Light,” she says, gazing up adoringly, “but when are you going to spend more time with Misa-Misa?”

Light tenses, and slides away from her. “Well, Misa… Do you trust me?”

She nods fervently once again. Her glasses fall off entirely. 

“I’m dating Ryuzaki right now, as a cover.” Light says, conjuring up a frown. “So I can’t be seen with you all that much.”

She pauses, and shifts away from Light. “Wait — you’re dating him? And you want me to kill him?” 

“It’s a cover!” Light pleads, “He’s an anti-Kira leader — he’s hurting the world!”

“Light, you’re…” she steels herself, and swallows heavily. “You’re manipulating someone’s feelings for you! You can’t just do that!”

“And if you could do that to someone sweet like Ryuzaki…” she spits, as her tears falls and smudge her eyeliner, “then you could have been doing it to me too! Tell me you weren’t!”

“I’m sorry,” L intones behind them, “am I missing something?”

Misa looks at L — at his hair, flying askew, with whipped cream on the tips from one of the many cakes he’s balancing in his hands — and flees, tears flying as she goes. Her glasses remain on the table. 

_Fuck._

“Well, I’m assuming that went badly.” L says, and slides next to Light at the table. “Cake?”

Light ignores the proffered dessert — he doesn’t think he could stomach it, what with the horror crawling up his throat. “About as badly as it could have.”

“Ah, well,” L says, starting on a fruit tart, “it’s done with now, right?”

Light presses his palms against his eyelids, but Misa swims in them, eyes glowing red. “I suppose it is.”

L takes his hand, and Light looks up at him, startled. “Are you alright, Light?” L asks, and Light feels something in him warm as he looks at the concern in L’s expression. _Wait,_ he thinks, and the panic he felt before returns like a wave. _I can’t…_ He tries to relax and ignore the swelling fondness in his chest. 

L, he repeats to himself, as their fingers mingle and he struggles to breathe, is made of marble, and loving men made of stone shouldn’t come so easily. Light has nothing to worry about — not even the way that his heart won’t stop beating like there are hornets in his veins. He certainly doesn’t have to worry about L’s moon-smile that shines like the porcelain plates in front of them, and lights up the room in a way Light’s sure he never managed.

L sees Light’s eyes on him and smiles. “I’m sure it’ll all work out okay, Light.” L says. He holds Light’s hand a little tighter. 

—

 

 

Light wasn’t quite accustomed to having his own space. 

He’d been with L for months — only months? he wonders, as he drags his foot along the woolen rug — having been chained in a seven-foot circle at all times, and he wasn’t used to having privacy, of any sort.

What was he supposed to fill his time with, now that he was free from L but lacking a Death Note? He no longer had to pretend that he wasn’t Kira, or that he was eager to aid the investigation, but his Death Note was still at headquarters, and Misa’s buried underground. Besides, he ponders, sliding into a desk chair, it was far too dangerous to resume the Kira killings now, after he’d only just been freed from constant observation. 

He had nothing to do, now. He was in his childhood bedroom, his apartment having been sold since L interrupted his life. Although, he pondered, grabbing a pen and twirling it absentmindedly, it was neither his — too tied to his parents and to his own naive past to being to the person he was now — nor childish: he’d made a point as a teenager to make his bedroom entirely functional, bereft of any personal details. 

If he had an apartment now, he’d… he’d probably design it in a minimalist sort of way, with a cutting white and black, juxtaposing to make an uncluttered picture. Streamlined, devoid of complication, and stylish enough to suit him. Maybe a few works of art just this side of macabre, as a subtle taunt and a reminder, of sorts. He clicks his pen in satisfaction and leans back to meet a pair of wide-set eyes, shining like boiled eggs. 

He drops his pen. 

“Hey, Light-o!” Ryuk says, from where he stands behind Light’s chair. “This is nostalgic, isn’t it?”

Light shakes his head and pushes his hair back. “Hello, Ryuk.” he says, in a voice he hopes isn’t too long-suffering. “What do you want?”

“Well…” Ryuk says, suddenly as sheepish as Light had ever seen him. “I was wondering if you’d… you know, dropped the whole Kira thing.”

He turns, and meets Ryuk’s eyes, which swivel slightly in their sockets. 

Light straightens, donning a imperiousness he’d almost forgotten like a cape. “And what,” Light asks, as Ryuk’s grin widens, slightly, “would cause you to think that?”

“You and L were doing all of those… I dunno, squishy human things?” Ryuk says. “And you went and did… cake stuff, like you used to do with Misa. It looks like,” Light notices the sharpness of Ryuk’s teeth, “somebody’s forgotten about Kira after all.” 

Light swallows, and pauses, and stares. 

Ryuk was an idiot, firstly — the reasons he’d listed for Light’s abandonment of his goals were just that he’d had sex with L and taken him on dates, as if either of those things had indicated that Light was emotionally compromised in the past. He’d done both numerous times — done both numerous times in the name of Kira, even. 

 _But._ Light thinks. _But._

L was… different, than the others, in a way that wasn’t so simple to pinpoint. Their minds chase each other like heartbeats; Light still remembers the trembling exhilaration of their chess games, of pooling their thoughts to make iridescent wholes, of L’s legs spread in their shared bedroom, his eyes wide open and his mind flying as Light licked the inside of his thigh. 

Light, without Kira, had felt… something, at least, for L. But he has Kira — has the truth of himself back, and his sentimentality and other weaknesses are secondary to his ambitions. Kira is too much of his mind for him to be the same person, and, therefore, Light does not feel the same way about L as he did before. 

But… forgetting about Kira, as Ryuk had suggested? Kira — justice for justice’s sake? Kira, Light’s creation and persona, the truth of him and the truth of everything else, had changed things: crime rates had plummeted, fewer innocents ran scared when the skies darkened, and the world was a better place than it had been before. The Kira movement seemed to justify itself, almost; when Light found the Death Note, his reasoning was simple. What do you do with a murder weapon? — you murder people with it. What do you do if the world is sick? — you kill the disease.

But, for all of his posturing, for all of Kira’s grandiosity — Light swallowed, heavily, and Ryuk waited like a statue, sinking like a forgotten relic into desert sand — he hadn’t been waiting for the Death Note to fall; he had had no latent plans, anxiously wondering when the means to fulfill them would stumble to him. He may have angered at the world, but he could not have been waiting for the Death Note, because, to his knowledge, there was nothing for him to wait for. Light, by the time the Death Note had fallen, had already acclimated himself to the fact that even if the world was rotten, he wouldn’t be able to change it. It would have taken more time than it had taken him to adjust to existence of the Death Note, if using it to eradicate evil was the ultimate goal. And if he was concerned about the morality of using the Death Note, then surely he would have needed more time — rather than a few hours, he thinks, and winces — to come to the decision to kill off over a thousand people. Ought he, he thinks, as his fingers twitch and bugs crawl under his skin, to forget Kira, then? 

 _But_ , he thinks, _I wanted to do something good. Isn’t Kira good?_

The world was healthier, in some ways, but in others… Light remembers, vividly, from when his memories were gone, the depth of his own emotions — remembers his outrage at Kira’s audacity, at one man playing God in a world of men. He remembers the certainty of his own devotion to catching himself in the act, his conviction that Kira was something evil, something malignant. His intelligence, when Kira had left him, was still intact, so how had he been so misled? 

Or, was he misled at all? 

Why had Light become Kira, if not to better the world? 

 _Were you… bored?_ Something murmurs, with Light’s voice but with syllables that hit like hammers.

The answer rings true, and Light rocks with it, for just a moment. But — he stops, and he clicks the pen four times in rapid succession — does that matter? For what reason did the titans of history conquer worlds? For what reason did Alexander kill thousands, and the Mongols millions more? They are of his ilk, Light thinks — he is just a quieter sort of conquerer, adapting to modern warfare, killing fewer to change the whole.  He fights on a plane of thought, of reason, with a weapon of black and white, slicing away at grayscale. Light doesn’t need to justify being Kira, just as Alexander didn’t have to justify being a commander; he simply is, and the Kira movement has reason to exist. 

And, because the Kira movement has reason to exist, he has his answer — he will continue to be Kira, and L has not gotten to him, no matter what Ryuk might think. Light wanted to build a new world to last the ages — he refuses to believe that his ideals have been corrupted after so little time with L. 

 _But._ The word echoes, and he still feels ill-at-ease, so he asks himself one more thing. 

 Would he sacrifice L on the altar of his ideals?

Light clicks his pen again, and it leaks, ink staining his hands. 

—

 

 

In the helicopter, L hands the Death Note over to Light and he screams endlessly, in a dark and dreamless way that L’s not sure could end.  But, eventually, it does, and Light inhales sharply, his hands quaking around the Death Note, with his eyes fixed straight ahead. L looks at him, then: at the part of his hair and the tremble of his chest, and he notices, despite the best efforts of Light and his own damn heart, the tinted gleam in the bottom of Light’s eyes. 

“Light?” he asks, tremulously, and Light turns to face him, demons neatly shelved; but, before, L saw summer days in Light’s eyes, and now he sees cities burning, and towers falling under their own weight. 

“I’m alright, L.” Light says, but L knows what he saw, and Light’s smile grows an edge that L doesn’t think that Light means for it to have. 

 _Kira_. L thinks, and he’s not sure if he’s ever felt so broken, in the thrill of being right. 

_—_

 

 

 

  

 

_“So you’re more boy than myth and all the flowers are left wilting.”_

_-Trista Mateer_

 

Light Yagami is trying his best not to panic.  

The handcuffs are off, yes, and he has his memories, but, for all his gains, he’s sustained major losses, as well; Misa is gone, and with her, Rem. And Rem, Light knows, as he pops a nausea pill, could easily tell L that the 13-day rule is false, and then L has him. 

“Are you alright, Light?” L asks. “You haven’t seemed well, recently.”

 _Leave me the hell alone._ “It’s just a little bug,” Light says, “It’ll be gone soon enough.”

“If you’re sure.” L replies, and turns back to the monitors. 

They’ve been, since Higuichi, trying to close out the Kira case in a way to satisfy international authorities. It’s been largely routine — checking for patterns in killings, paper-pushing — and Light wishes that he could get his Death Note back and give L some real patterns to investigate.

“Alright, everyone.” L says. Light pauses in his typing, and looks at L sideways. “It’s time for a meeting — we need to go over a few key details.”

With some minor grumbling, the task force assembles in the center of the room. L crouches at the head of the group, and Light follows him to his right side. 

“We need,” L says, “to ensure that there is no way that Kira could ever return. Are we all in agreement on that point?” 

The room nods. Light crosses his legs. 

“Although the ICPO is hesitant in relying on them as sources,” L continues, “I believe we have much to gain in talking to Rem, the Death Note’s shinigami.”

Light freezes. 

L continues, ignorant to Light’s panic. “Does anyone object to asking her about the Death Notes, and the state of Kira at the moment?”

The room affirms this plan, and Rem is summoned. L looks over to Light. “The case is almost over, now.” L says, and smiles cutely. “I told you we’d catch Kira together.”

Light inhales, as sharply as he can without drawing suspicion. He takes L’s hand. “Yes, you did.”

L squeezes his hand, gently, and turns to Rem. “Hello, there. I have some questions —“

“Yes, I’m aware.” Rem says, in a rumbling monotone. “Do your questions include Kira’s status, and identity?” 

“Well, yes.” L says, slightly startled. “How did you —“

“You’ll find,” Rem says, suddenly wry, “that I’ve been playing this game for a long time. Light Yagami,” she smiles, as the blood draining from Light’s face pools at his feet, “is Kira.”

“That can’t be!” Matsuda shouts, as everyone else stays shock-still. 

“This meeting is adjourned.” L says, puncturing the moment. “Leave headquarters and only come back when I call you.”

“Ryuzaki, can’t I at least talk —“ Soichiro begins.

“No, you may not. Watari will escort you out.”

L grabs Light’s arm and Light, in his panic, allows L to steer him towards their rooms in the back of headquarters. The team files out behind them, and L keeps a firm grip on the black of Light’s button-up. 

“L —“ Light says. 

“Light.” L says, and he pulls Light to the ground and leans against the hallway wall, wallpaper peeling near the floor. 

“L,” Light tries again, and L looks to his knobby toes, watching them crawl over each other like maggots. “I’m not Kira. Surely you can’t take the word of a shinigami —“

“I think you’d be surprised at my capacity to believe a primary source.” L says. “And, considering that she isn’t a Kira suspect, her word has more value than yours.”

“But I’ve been cleared as a suspect! Higuchi’s death wrapped up the Kira investigation!”

“That’s a matter of opinion, I think.” L says. “REM!” he yells, and she materializes through the ceiling. 

“Rem,” L says, as she inclines her head, “are you willing to tell the truth, and only the truth, to aid us in discovering whether or not Light is Kira?”

“Yes.” she intones, voice resonating through the narrow space. “It is in my interests as well, to see him put to justice.”

“Excellent.” L says. “Firstly, was Higuchi the first Kira?”

“No.” Rem states. “The Death Note was given to him after the reign of the first Kira.”

“Alright,” L says, “Secondly, I’d like to confirm a suspicion of mine — are all of the Death Note rules true?”

Light clenches his fist, and his nails leave hollows in the meat of his palm. 

“No.” Rem continues, “The thirteen-day rule, as well as the rule concerning the defacement of the Death Note, are false.”

“How did those rules end up the Death Note, then?” L asks, his traitor-moon eyes wider than Light had ever seen them. 

“Light added them to avoid suspicion.”

“Is Light the first Kira, who gave Higuchi the Death Note to clear his name?” 

“Yes.”

“Is Misa Amane the second?”

Light’s eyes widen. _Yes, L!_ he rejoices. _Endanger Misa; Rem will have no choice but to kill you!_

“Due to blackmail,” Rem responds, voice calm, even as the bones on her back begin to creak. 

“She seemed fairly willing, to begin with.” L, thumb in the corner of his mouth, continues. “Are you certain?”

Rem tenses, as Light’s nerves wind around a spring. “Misa Amane’s immunity is the price for my testimony. She insisted that I come forward, for her safety.”

L smiles slightly, his thin lips forming a crescent. “Although I’d love to question the timing of this announcement, her immunity can be easily arranged. Thank you, Rem.”

Rem nods, and fades through the wall, until the only remnant of her presence is the blood on Light’s palms and the blood underneath his nails. 

“Light,” L says, and grabs Light’s hand. “Breathe,” and suddenly Light’s aware that his breathing is frantic, and tears are stuck in his eyes. 

“God…” Light says, and he presses the heel of his palm into the bottom of his eye socket. He’s burning, his brain dancing on charcoals, but Light can’t see _any_ way to get out of this, and L’s face is too gentle for him to think straight. 

“Light,” L says, after a quiet minute, filled with the _hiccup_ of Light’s breathing as he tries to soften his sniffling, “I can have Watari erase the tapes.”

“Why would…” Something is roaring in Light’s ears. He imagines red rivets of blood pooling in the sacred space between L’s ribs. He cups his knee and feels his nails break.

“Are you Kira, Light Yagami?” L asks. He tilts his head, slowly. Sweat drips down their joined hands. Light can’t breathe. 

His vision dims, the hallway shrouded in black. Light can hear familiar laughter behind him. He rips his hand out of L’s and lunges. He wraps his hands around L’s throat. L looks at him blankly. 

“You can’t!” Light yells, his voice rough, like there’s something dying in his throat. “I was supposed…The world was…” His words falter, and L’s eyes remain accusing, and unchanged. He tightens his grip. 

“I’m Kira,” he says, finally, as L’s face swells, “and you weren’t supposed to stop me!” 

L gasps, for the first time. His eyes look like space. Like nothingness. Like a vacuum. 

“Are you Light Yagami, Kira?” L asks, his face purple and covered with sweat, and his voice splintering like wood. 

Light inhales, and he whimpers, high and keening. He tries to breathe evenly, but L keeps looking at him, and Kira looms, and he can hear Ryuk laughing behind him and _he can’t fucking —_

He breaks away from L, throwing his body to the other side of the hallway. He hits with a thud, his head cracking against the wallpaper, and curls in on himself. 

L moves towards him, immediately, and wraps his arms around Light’s ribs. 

“Get _off_ me.” Light says, in a voice like a wheeze, a deflated thing letting out air. 

“No.” L says, and moves closer. He cups Light’s cheeks, and presses their foreheads together. “You think after everything, I’m leaving?”

“ _No_.” Light says, and his voice breaks into pieces. “But I wanted you to _die,_ I wanted to _kill you, and I would have.”_

“You didn’t, though.” L says, gently. Light slaps him, and his nails leave red trails across L’s cheeks. 

“You _fucking dumbass_.” Light says, “I wanted you to _die._ ”

“Past-tense?” L says, and he smiles at Light; his eyes no longer look so empty. 

“I don’t…” Light says, and then he swallows, and he kisses L with everything he has, for just a second. Light’s head spins, just like it has every time, like L made constellations in his head, like Light has found something to orbit around. He pulls away. “Yes, you stupid fuck.”

“In that case,” L says, his voice slipping into something a little more formal, “we have two options: one, you stay with me, forever, and we tell the world you died —“

Light laughs a little, at that, and rubs at his eyes. 

“Or,” L says, empathetic and kinder than Light deserves, “you talk it out with your family, and _then_ you stay with me forever.”

“You’re really stuck on that whole ‘stay with me forever bit, aren’t you.” Light falls into L’s shoulder. L wraps his arm around him. “Don’t you have some moral code to stick with, though? Can you forgive me of my sins?”

“I think,” L says, “that your biggest problem is that you forgot how to forgive, so I think I ought to lead by example, and show a little mercy.”

“I want to see my family.” Light says, and he startles himself, with his certainty. “I’d like to try, just once.”

L kisses him firmly. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Light looks at his face, then — at the scratches along his cheeks, at the tears that he shed, at the destruction Light wrought across his skin — and Light almost wants to cry, with the might of what he’s feeling, and so he does, and L lets him. They breathe together, slowly and surely, and Light can feel the world settle into place. 

—

 

 

Things don’t always go perfectly. 

His family doesn’t forgive him, outright. Sayu is horrified, and she doesn't talk to him for a year. Saichiko, Light can tell, wants to do the same, but she hugs him the first time he breaks down in front of her. Soichiro is the worst, though; the anguish, in his eyes, when he learns what Light was, easily brings Light to his knees, and only L’s tempered persuasion can even bring him into the same room as Light. 

Most of the time, though, his emotional distance from his family doesn’t matter, much. He and L travel the world for cases. L prefers the efficiency of airplanes, but Light has grown partial to boats, and the way the water rocks them, and how he can blame his queasiness on the boat, for once. 

“What was your first experience with death?” L asks, one time, as they pass by sleepy glaciers. 

“I was… young,” Light responds, eyes on the surf, “A hostage situation in a bank. She died quickly, I was told.”

“Were you…” L asks, newly hesitant, “were you all right?”

“She was right next to me.” Light says, and his breath turns into frost. “Bits of her brain in my mouth, blood in my eyes. I was… 6, I think.”

“I imagine seeing was a problem?” L says, and he turns his eyes on Light.

“For quite a while,” Light responds, with a distant smile. “I’m only now just getting it out.”

L breathes in his face, and Light sighs into the fog. “Well, in that case, I ought to take you sightseeing. How do the Alps sound?”

Light ends up liking the Alps — likes trembling cold, feet stretched out over the precipice, while nature stands solid in front of him.  L says it's easier to forget yourself when the world dwarfs you, like it does at hundreds of thousands of feet. Light likes how mountains climb, though — how they reach upward unabashedly, into the world of clouds and beyond, peaks scraping the edge of the stars. 

“You like how tall they are, hm?” L laughs, and it’s as awful as it first was, croaky and full of holes. “You ought to be careful with that — Tower of Babel, you know.”

“Don’t be so obvious,” Light chuckles. He pulls on L’s scarf like in a rom-com, and L spins for a moment before collapsing dramatically in the snow, rather than fall into Light’s arms. 

“Don’t _you_ be so obvious.” L huffs from the ground, and he takes advantage of his position to throw some of the gathering snow at Light. 

Light laughs and it comes out bell-shaped, echoing through the snowcapped peaks and distant towns that spread beneath them like a promise. L looks into his eyes — seeing summer skies that could easily melt the softness of snow — and smiles, contentedly, feeling the quiet triumph of change.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the shitty Netflix trailer and by these fics, which you should read:
> 
> Going To Marrakesh: http://archiveofourown.org/works/305227
> 
> A Tithe to Hell: http://archiveofourown.org/works/275300


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